


Spring Cleaning

by Snapjack



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Aftermath, F/M, M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-03
Updated: 2017-05-03
Packaged: 2018-10-27 03:45:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10801023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snapjack/pseuds/Snapjack
Summary: “Oh, hello, John. I was just Marie Kondo-ing my stress area.”





	Spring Cleaning

“Mrs. Hudson, what are you doing?” John stood in the open doorway of 221A with two grocery bags.

His landlady, balancing on a stepstool in front of an open and chaotic coat closet, appeared to snap slightly back into reality. “Oh, hello, John. I was just Marie Kondo-ing my stress area.”

“You were just what-ing your what?” John said, stepping further into the apartment.

“Marie Kondo. She teaches you how to organize, by thinking like a Japanese person,” Mrs. Hudson said. “It’s very practical.” She withdrew from the closet with two large vibrators, one clutched in each hand. “And what I can’t seem to decide is, whether these spark joy or guilt?”

John’s face went through three color changes in rather quick succession.

“Well,” he finally said, “I would hope that, if used as intended, those would spark… joy… of a sort.”

“ _Of course,_ dear,” said Mrs. Hudson. “But these were mine with my ex-husband’s, and I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how complicated the feelings brought up by an old lover’s possessions can be.”

“No, I suppose… not,” said John, still blinking rapidly. “Well, I’ll… leave you to it.”

“Oh, John!” Mrs. Hudson called when he was halfway up the stairs.

“Yes?”

“Don’t forget, Sherlock’s birthday is tomorrow,” she called airily, then listened closely. First the bags hit the steps. Then a muttered, “Shit.” Then, loudly, “Yes, thank you, Mrs. Hudson.”

“You’re welcome, dear,” she called back. Under her breath, she muttered, “Try not to cock it up this time.”

 

 

It wasn’t that she wanted to be nosy, you understand. Mrs. Hudson had had dozens of renters over the years, and she’d always found it perfectly easy to keep out of their business entirely. Good morning and how are you, the plumber’s coming by today so could you leave your door unlocked, I’ll just leave your mail right here. Oh, she’d had a few tenants she liked more than others—Lakshmi the medical student and that nice Irish painter who hung himself came to mind—but overall, Mrs. Hudson had been a very hands-off landlady.

 

And then came Sherlock. Swan-white, smack-sick and skeletally thin, he roared into her life ravenously addicted to morphine, cocaine, anything he could get his hands on really at that point. Collapsing on her stairs, letting her cat run free out the door, in the early stages of liver failure and still making deductions, a geyser of astonishing insights erupting out of him faster than he could reign them in. She fought the urge to tend to him for three days before being pulled into Sherlock’s gravitational field—she’s not left it since. Three overdoses, countless relapses, endless grinding nights at St. Bart’s, thumping techno music through the ceiling from his terrible overnight guests, several of whom helped themselves to her hallway possessions before she stopped keeping them there. Commitments. Convulsions. Methadone. Mycroft, sitting at her kitchen table so many nights she started stocking in his favorite tea. There is something to be said for the rejuvenating powers of a crisis; before she met Sherlock, Mrs. Hudson had been securely strapped into a life safe as a city bus, with as inevitable a predestination—three or four more years, tops, and she would have died, quietly, in her bed, from heart failure. A stroke. Cerebral edema. Anything to make a graceful and efficient exit, really. She wasn’t needed, you see. And Mrs. Hudson knows now, thanks to Sherlock, that the number one killer of Britons isn’t actually heart disease or street violence or accidents involving hospital vending machines. It’s uselessness. Mrs. Hudson was an obsolete model, a vestigial limb, and her body had known it. Slowly, she had been shutting down, folding in on herself, taking longer to get out of bed in the mornings and less and less sure what she’d even bothered getting up for. Sherlock had changed all that. With her new boarder, there was **always** a reason to get out of bed in the morning: Lestrade, looking apologetic on her front stoop. Hysterical clients, threatening legal action. Ammonia, dripping through the ceiling. And the flip side of all that: the Stradivarius, filling the night air with silver. Mrs. Hudson’s greatest fear, put to rest six feet down in Florida earth. Lestrade’s backside, heading up the stairs. And, though it was a secret she’d never share with Sherlock, Mrs. Hudson was very fond of Mycroft Holmes indeed. One could hardly stay up until three AM with a man so many times and _not_ grow fond.

 

When John Watson first showed up, she assumed Sherlock had taken up rough trade for drugs again. Army doctors must have access to all sorts of prescriptions—and since John walked with a limp, well. There’s Vicodin, and Percocet, and probably some sort of prescription sleep aid if Sherlock wanted it; the list goes on and on. (An old hand at dependency issues, Mrs. Hudson can scan your medicine cabinet for fungible assets in less than three seconds.) She never expected him to be what he was—decent. Loyal. Relentlessly brave. And absolutely besotted with Sherlock, in, and this was the real miracle, _a way that Sherlock could feel_. Mrs. Hudson is a great believer in love languages; she has read all about them, and can tell you that Mycroft speaks in Gifts, and Sherlock, bless him, can only interpret Words of Affirmation. Molly Hooper, poor girl, can only perform Acts of Devotion, which will go unnoticed by Sherlock until the sun swallows the earth. John Watson is apparently some sort of Love Interpreter. He can speak everything, from Mrs. Hudson’s own Quality Time to Lestrade’s Physical Touch, and switches between languages with ease, like the people who sit in the gallery at the United Nations with headphones on making everyone make sense to each other. She could **kiss** John Watson, she absolutely could. Except, of course, when she wants to murder him in his sleep. This happens every January 6 th. Sherlock’s birthday.

 

On Sherlock’s first birthday after meeting John, the day went unremarked by John. This is because Sherlock, the twat, had done everything within his power to conceal the nature of the date to his new friend. Then he spent the entire day in a pout because John hadn’t noticed it was his birthday. Mrs. Hudson’s invitation to come down to 221A for a spot of cake had been answered with a huff into the couch cushions. This is not technically John Watson’s fault, but Mrs. Hudson had made quite a mess of her kitchen while baking, and she doesn’t even **like** German chocolate.

 

On Sherlock’s second birthday after meeting John, John thought it might be a good idea to organize a surprise party for Sherlock Holmes. Mrs. Hudson had repeated the idea back to him just like that: “A _surprise_ party. For Sherlock Holmes?”

(Did John listen? He did not.)

 

On Sherlock’s third birthday after meeting John, Sherlock died. This was perhaps inevitable, given the terribly complex machinations of Moriarty’s plan, but it still seems in poor taste. John responded… poorly.

 

On Sherlock’s fourth birthday after meeting John, John spent most of the day drunk and refused to pick up Mrs. Hudson’s call.

 

On Sherlock’s fifth birthday after meeting John, the same thing happened, only Mrs. Hudson, tired of her calls being ignored for two straight years, left John quite a stroppy voicemail.

 

On Sherlock’s sixth birthday after meeting John, John, whose emotional rollercoaster at Sherlock’s resurrection had not yet come to a complete stop, bought Sherlock quite a large and expensive microscope, which he then left on Sherlock’s stoop without a card or a knock.

 

On Sherlock’s seventh birthday after meeting John, Sherlock spent most of the day in a methadone stupor. Mrs. Hudson knows this because she spent all day with Mycroft, watching Sherlock – and, briefly, John - on one of the only cameras he hasn’t discovered and screwdrivered out of the woodwork of his living room. John had forgotten the date entirely until the text from Ms. Adler reminded him, because he was still angry at Sherlock.  Mrs. Hudson found his omission of any celebration intellectually understandable and emotionally unforgivable. 

 

Tomorrow will be Sherlock’s eighth birthday after meeting John. Mrs. Hudson is sorely tempted to take John in hand, march him straight down to Marks and Spencer, point him to the most eye-bleedingly expensive scarf available, and inform him that he will be purchasing it for Sherlock, but she will restrain herself. If John Watson is going to cock up his relationship, she cannot and will not stop him. Better it happen while Rosie is still very young.

 

Mrs. Hudson tells herself this at least thirteen times a day, trying to convince herself not to meddle. Mycroft sometimes provides a little extra moral support, patiently listening to her fret over what will become of Sherlock if John should leave, then gently urging her to stay the course. “He must come to it on his own, Mrs. Hudson,” he always says. “They both must. All we can do is wait.” Mrs. Hudson doesn’t know where Mycroft gets his patience from, or Sherlock and John for that matter. In her day, no one waited eight years to make a move, what with the Second World War clicking under the floorboards of everyone’s childhood like a deathwatch beetle, and Vietnam sucking like a drain at the pool of youth. You liked the look of someone on a train, and you bummed a cigarette and if you liked the way they kissed, you found a nice sunny spot against a wall somewhere. And that was _without_ any slick-haired Irish psychopaths trying to blow you up every other Tuesday… Mrs. Hudson sighs, gives up on Kondo-ing for the day, and fixes herself a hot tea with a slight dribble of whiskey—just a _slight_ one, because Sherlock _will_ comment if she tipples as generously as she once did, in the days before he came to live with her. “Why shouldn’t I enjoy retirement?” the old battle cry then, a brave face on three to four solid hours of drunkenness every afternoon. Being pulled backwards from the borderline of alcoholism by Sherlock’s need felt like being narrowly missed by a meteorite, only to be pulled into a black hole. There was suddenly no more space for fuzzy thinking, not with the genius Chernobyl upstairs.

 

Now, though, the meltdown has ceased, the ongoing chain reaction of self-destruction slowed. John and Rosie are here, and though John occasionally makes noises about needing to find a better space, those grumblings are fewer and farther between than they have ever been. Rosie adores Sherlock, sleeps like a sack of sand when he’s around and will take any food from his hand. Find any widowed parent of an infant who could turn that down.

 

John, eyes like pissholes in snow for six straight months after Mary’s death, certainly couldn’t. Staggering down the stairs, going only “out” every night, door slamming against the outside brickwork to punctuate his absence. Mrs. Hudson, biting her lip against what she wanted to say; Sherlock, silhouetted at the top of the stairs, holding Rosie. Watching John go silently, then turning and going back inside with Rosie. Never complaining. Dealing with the crying, the colic. Changing diapers according to videos he looked up on YouTube. Feeding creamed carrots and pureed beets and once, catastrophically, frappucino.

“She was **_teething_** ,” Sherlock hissed frantically to Mrs. Hudson as they jounced a howling Rosie for the third straight hour. “I thought the numbness from the ice shavings would help!”

“It likely did,” said Mrs. Hudson, “right up until the caffeine and sugar caught up with her.”

“This howling is abominable,” said Sherlock.

“You’re lucky John isn’t home yet to hear,” said Mrs. Hudson. It was two AM. Sherlock, his hands busy with Rosie, frowned slightly but did not respond. Mrs. Hudson pressed her luck:

“You really ought to say something to him. It’s not right, him leaving you like this to look after a child all by yourself.”

“I rather think I’ve put him through enough,” said Sherlock.

“Is that what this is about?” asked Mrs. Hudson. “Guilt? Sherlock, John doesn’t really blame you for Mary’s death, he’s just _mourning—“_

“Mrs. Hudson, please, if you are going to prattle on with intolerable platitudes I shall be forced to take Rosie upstairs and frankly,” said Sherlock, visibly running out of steam halfway through the sentence, “I don’t think my nerves can take any more of this screaming. Please. You have to help me with this. I can’t bear it by myself.”

Mrs. Hudson melted. “Oh, dear, of course you’re exhausted, here, let me take her. Child-rearing is one of the most stressful times in life, and anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is—” lifting Rosie, she paused.  Sherlock was fast asleep, cheek pillowed on his hand, at her kitchen table.

“You little shit,” Mrs. Hudson said, and then a particularly shrill shriek from Rosie nearly ruptured her eardrum. “All right, all right, let’s see if I can find you some brandy….”

 

That was six months ago. Things are better now. Sometimes, Mrs. Hudson catches a few words of kitchen conversation between Sherlock and John, the topics mundane but the tones encouragingly fond: traffic, clinic shifts, going out for groceries and do you need anything? Once, she hears John laughing in the kitchen at night, his higher tones ringing over Sherlock’s lower chuckle like a sled dog joining chorus with a wolf. Molly Hooper comes by and nearly bends herself into a pretzel trying to find a way to ask if Sherlock and John are an item yet. Mrs. Hudson hardly has the heart to prolong the poor girl’s agony, but if she lies and says yes then Molly will only embarrass herself by congratulating John and Sherlock—probably on Facebook. So Mrs. Hudson says, “Not yet,” and pours Molly a drink, which Molly throws back with alarming speed. “D’you know, he made me say I loved him once on the phone and then _hung up on me?”_ Molly says, her fingers trembling.

Against her better judgement, Mrs. Hudson pours the girl another. Molly has told her this story before, but it clearly needs to get told again. And as Molly dispatches the second drink and embarks on her story, they sit down at the table for a long night’s vigil.

 

 

 

 

The next morning, Mrs. Hudson severely regrets having tried to keep up with a heartbroken 33-year-old. Wincing with acid indigestion, she fixes herself some Cream of Wheat and is about to eat when the calendar catches her eye: Sherlock’s birthday, written in red pen and circled three times lest she forget. Damn it, she has forgotten, and she always tries to bring morning tea up for him on this of all days. She checks the clock—11 AM. Far too late to be surreptitious about it. The barrage of deductions, on top of her already cruel headache, is too much to face. She resolves to buy some flowers (flashy ones, orange and purple, he’ll like that) and take them to him with an afternoon spread from Tesco’s. He’ll still make deductions, but they’ll be cushioned by a nice cream tea. She eats Cream of Wheat, still her favorite after nearly seventy years, and fields a frantic series of texts from Greg Lestrade, who, despite being a police officer, is surprisingly bad at dates.

 

GL: “Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit.”

 

MH: “You’ve just now realized it’s his birthday, haven’t you.”

 

GL: “I have. D’you think he’d like an unclaimed 18th century saber from the evidence locker? It’s from a solved domestic, been there seven years, by statute we have to destroy it.”

 

MH: “If you give him a saber, I shall throttle you. Do you know what he’s done to my wallpaper with a mere revolver?”

 

GL: “…he has a revolver?”

 

MH: “You didn’t hear it from me, and if you confiscate it from him you also have to take away Doctor Watson’s clock radio.”

 

GL: “OK, I’ll bite. Why am I confiscating John’s radio?”

 

GL: “Is it not really a radio? Has Sherlock turned it into something? Is it a bomb?”

 

GL: “It’s a bomb, isn’t it.”

 

MH: “No, just a clock radio.”

 

MH: “It’s quite loud. He uses it as an alarm clock.”

 

MH: “Every morning.”

 

MH: “Quite early.”

 

GL: “Does he know his cell phone can be used for that?”

 

MH: “I’ve tried to tell him subtly, but you know how he is. You may as well ask a brass urinal to take a hint.”

 

GL: “How about this, I’ll do a random sweep the next time Sherlock’s getting shirty, and I’ll give John one of those nice alarm clocks that works with light next Christmas.”

 

MH: “Wonderful!”

 

GL: “Doesn’t solve what I’m going to get Sherlock for his birthday though, does it?”

 

MH: “You always know what he says, dear. A case, a case, get me a case.”

 

MH: “Me, me, me. It’s really quite tiresome sometimes.”

 

GL: “Do you think he’d like to solve the traffic pattern at Wellington-Exeter? We’ve had 84 collisions there last year alone and the boys in Traffic are stumped.”

 

MH: “That’s no mystery, Greg dear, it’s the limited visibility down Exeter because you’ve allowed parking too close to the cross.”

 

GL: “…. Mrs. Hudson, would you like a position in the Met?”

 

MH: “Thank you, darling, but no.”

 

MH: “Must run now, off to the shops.”

 

MH: “Wouldn’t want you boys to catch me out texting while driving!”

 

MH: “ :P “

 

GL: “You saucy minx, you’ve learned emoji. And you still haven’t helped me figure out Sherlock’s birthday present.”

 

Mrs. Hudson smiles at the phone and drops it into her purse. Opening her kitchen door, she catches John wrestling an enormous straw target up the stairs.  The target is the size of a man, is shedding straw all up and down Mrs. Hudson’s carpet, and has a life-sized photographic printout of Mycroft attached to it. John freezes.

“Uh. Mrs. Hudson. Hello. Erm. This isn’t for small arms fire.”

“I can see that, John,” says Mrs. Hudson.

“It’s for archery. You know. Bow and arrow.”

“Yes.”

“I thought it might be… therapeutic. For him. I can go and take it back, if you don’t think he’d like it.”

“I think it’s perfect,” pronounces Mrs. Hudson, and beams at John. “He’ll love it.”

John looks relieved. “Do you really think so?”

“I really think so.”

“And you don’t mind the… archery?”

 Mrs. Hudson shrugged. “Better he shoot at that than my walls. It’s a lovely gift, John. Well done.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Hudson.” John squares his shoulders, and with renewed energy, continues hoisting the target upwards. Mrs. Hudson smiles and hikes her umbrella onto her shoulder and goes out to face the day. On her way out, she walks past the open closet, still spilling out into the hallway: guilt objects and joy objects cheek by jowl. It occurs to Mrs. Hudson that Marie Kondo has it all wrong. This trying to separate out the good from the bad, the grief from the joy, is a young person’s folly. When you get old enough, everything can spark joy if you look at it in the right light.

 

Everything.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> As always, this story would not exist without the input of my peerless beta, JentheSweetie. However, this story is even MORE her-fault than usual, because it was written as a request for her birthday. I am so very pleased and proud to be friends with a writer who challenges me in so many ways; before this story, I had sworn up and down that I would never ever be able to write a Sherlock story, because I just Cared! Too! Damn! Much! *cue swoon*. And JentheSweetie was like, yeah, no, you're writing this for my birthday bitch. 
> 
> So I did. 
> 
> And then she let me post it here. Because she is the kind of sweet and generous person who will always share her birthday presents. Love you, Sweetie.


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